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CHILDREN in one of London’s poorest boroughs, Tower Hamlets – are amongst the fattest in the country.

ONE in four 10-11 year-olds in Tower Hamlet’s are reported to be obese.

According to a report by the Greater London Authority, (GLA), over a third of London’s 11 year-olds in total are overweight and one in five are obese, making children in London heavier than those in other parts of England.

‘Modern diet is cheap, and heavily promoted’

The link between deprivation and obesity means that people in poorer areas have a higher risk of developing chronic illnesses due to poor diet and lifestyle choices.

One of the UK’s most well-known experts in obesity and weight loss, Dr Ian Campbell, believes that 30% of cancer cases, with more than half of the cases of type 2 diabetes sufferers are directly caused by these bad choices.

“There is an increasing awareness of the benefits of clean foods. But the modern diet is cheap, and heavily promoted so it seems unlikely that will change significantly in the near future. Sad, but true. Also, the ‘pharma’ industry reacts to market opportunity; they’re not a philanthropic movement. Where an opportunity doesn’t exist, they work hard to create one, ” he said.

‘Benefits massively’

The pharmaceutical industry is benefitting from the obesity epidemic. Novo Nordisk, which manufactures half of the world’s diabetes medicines and products had a 10% increase in its operating profit in the first nine months of 2013.

‘Cleverly covered up’

Health nutritionist, Yvonne Wake, is “convinced” that the adoption of a modern diet that contain constant intakes of processed, micro-waved and fast-foods, is the direct cause of the wide-spread prevalence of systematic degenerative diseases in western cultures. She also believes that the pharmaceutical industry gains “massively” from all of these illnesses.

“It’s all very cleverly covered up though and probably difficult to prove, except for the fact that company’s like Coca Cola and MacDonald’s are normally sponsors of studies and trials that test these pharmaceuticals,” she said.

Industries that profit from obesity in general are growing. With the addition of more than 21,300 Macdonald’s stores worldwide since 1992 – it doesn’t look like we’ll be getting any thinner.

The McDonald's business model is dependent on a populace that is fascistically conformist.

OCCD is a mental or neurobehavioral disorder marked by a combination of anti-social traits, narcissism, and an obsessive addiction for power and control. Unlike other disorders, OCCD patients display exceptionally high levels of denial and will go to any lengths to avoid being regarded as an addict or the like. The public merit for this diagnosis, or rather the drastic lack thereof, further reinforces in the individual an elevated sense of self-delusion where they thrive in the glory of their manifested illusionary fantasies. The most unusual aspect about OCCD is this peculiar lack of research and attention it gets from healthcare systems around the world. This is knowing that more than generally, OCCD sufferers are collectively responsible for the unrelenting merciless carnage of an indefinable number of people (directly or indirectly) and for the deliberate irreversible exploitation of the Earth’s recourses and wildlife. This goes without saying that OCCD individuals tend to use their cunning to win prime rankings in society, thus enabling them to nurture their unwholesome appetite for power and control. They’re then offered the opportunity insofar as, nurturing the current unsustainable consumerist system that remains fundamentally primitive and short-sighted at its inception.

They normally appear smarmy, boasting a sort of learnt aesthetic malice where they are commonly described as being godly manipulators with superlative powers of deception. As they are essentially hypocritical and deceitful, they consistently influence and challenge the perceptions held of them by others if needed to remain in a position of power. Distraction, reward and swift punishment are normally the first-hand devices employed for the managing of subjects, where their pre-suggestive persuasion techniques and thought control tactics have failed. The latter is flippantly called brainwashing and is still largely understood by the masses. They confuse perpetual persuasion as normality, some are able to win control of the Media to desensitise others over time from the eternal rise of imposed restrictions on their liberties and civil rights.. for their own selfish gain of course. OCCD patients tend to cluster together which enables them to exert greater influence upon their victims using the intimidating facade that comes from being in a group. They cleverly use their structured network of like-minded sufferers to justify their actions – much like a cult – therefore fastening their convictions and mistaking their illness for superiority.

Sufferers typically have a severely impaired ability to empathise with others, showing little or no regard for the evident damage of their frivilous undertakings – even when presented with evidential facts. A precondition of people with this addiction is that they are highly distrustful due to their foul, detached and purposeful human interactions, believing that others are merely pawns to be engaged with for their own selfish gain. They are also fundamentally secretive which makes it exceedingly difficult to obtain data about their personal lives, whereabouts and motives. While in turn, others are habitually expected to deliver as much personal information about themselves and their networks as they can get for misrepresented tracking purposes. Most attempts to learn about their motivations will be met with hostility and the subject will be dealt with accordingly. An elusive unconscious delusion smothers their judgment as obvious as a choking smog of carbon emissions; inhibiting their ability to think outside their paradigm for the purpose of future outlook and sustainable planning. Commonly enough they appear remorseless, aloof and ignorant of the dire repercussions that arise from their impositions time after time, after time and time again.

Sufferers are normally victims of their parent’s own intensively strict regimes which then runs down the generations… just a social status game. They often do this by subjecting their children to stern rules, severe punishments, endless tasks and extra-curricular activities, also displaying a perverted observation of behaviour for hints of dissonance where they control their social networks and track their whereabouts. Normally their complete control philosophy is the only antidote for the often extreme submission they felt as youth. Using complete control as a defence mechanism. Being unable to develop emotionally leaves the person with an inner-void where they lack the ability to identify with the self causing them to live solely for purpose with hardly any capability to comprehend the empathetic and creative side of human nature.

Our continent may be run by megalomaniac madmen addicted to power which is linked to control entailing a more developed and apparent illusion of freedom. Some say we all have set levels of freedom based on our past experiences of it… and we aspire to maintain those levels, whether they have loose or tight frontiers. Meaning nobody with power will ever search to revoke it. What you end up with is the construct of blind certainty, a closed mindedness that is so intact that the willing prisoners don’t even know they’re locked up. Just like any other addict.

We all know at least one of them. At least someone growing up with you in school was the rebellious hyper-kid who would know the rules, watch the teacher draw out stricter lines, then casually walk all over them in hilariously shocking ways. They were the kids that seemed to have a blatant disregard for order and reputation, soon to clamber up the social ranks as ‘the funny kid’. That or they were the obvious outcast, which in my very public school, wasn’t the case. My friend Nick ”suffers” from attention deficit hyperactive disorder and is a classic example of someone who acts disorderly. I remember he let off a fart bomb in maths class without seemingly batting an eyelid, jumped off one of our city’s biggest bridges into the water in the early hours and was always seen flailing around in his birthday suit. That of course is just a glimpse of it and yea, of course he’s daring, but I still don’t see anything wrong with him, nothing more than just the intelligent, fun-loving kid that I grew up with through school.

Jake is repelled by structure, orthodoxy and is rivalled by routine. He normally “can’t be arsed” to shower, brush his teeth and even eat on a regular basis. He struggles to sleep, if any or at all. Shakes like Ozzy, smokes like a fiend and commonly compromises his uni work for drinking and random shenanigans. His impulsive and obsessive nature binds his wrists in this phenomenal rat race as he slowly chips away at his employability. But for all the things that he apparently is not; he is also a tireless musician, strumming his electric and acoustic guitar until his calloused up fingers become unbearable. His focus is music. His outlet is music. His heroes are musicians. His missed school days are spent ruthlessly indulging in musical instruments and melodies. He never had the patience to learn how to read music properly, but lo and behold he can surely produce it. Music is the one thing that he can tune into, with immense clarity, with immense purpose, and constantly. People call it passion. Some might call it talent. But mostly – they call it failure.

Even though I have to force Jake to go to the dentist, consume something other than biscuits, tea and coffee and to check his emails; I often wonder what would happen to him if he fell in line and took medication. Would he still be the same exuberant and artistically lovable Jake that we all know and cherish, or would he turn into seemingly lobotomized person as common as the next? Would his new-found sleeping patterns and ability to concentrate sway him towards being more acceptably fitting for society’s commands? Or would his personality still shine through. Would it guide him to formulate a more proactive approach in his musical endeavour rather than blatantly dreaming to become a ‘rock star’ proportionate to Jimmy Hendrix? Or would he become a docile failure to himself, numbing his natural eccentric fervour to make room for those socially acceptable and mundane ‘follow the line’ tendencies. Would his chemical make-up subtly shift and subside under a layer of psychological fine-tuning, where a slither of his personality gets willingly swept under the rug before being labelled as ‘destructive by nature’. And for what exactly? To fit in?… to succeed. Where does that leave a 23 year-old in society where individualism is obviously discouraged, no matter how much they tell you to ‘be different’ and to ‘be yourself’.

Only the brave, aloof or stupid seem to break away from social trends and dance to their own beat. But when you ‘Dare to be a Daniel’ and exercise your intellectual freedom; society sees it as undesirable, ideologically criminal, antisocially selfish and just straight out dangerous. Now if you’re born into a society where order and discipline is needed to succeed from childhood, till pretty much when you’re six feet under, well then yes, ADHD would be seen as a disorder or as I prefer to think of it as more of a massive disadvantage rather. As well as many other mental health disorders, where you draw the line on what is a debilitating disorder and what is just a variant type of personality. Aren’t all of these following symptoms present in all of us at some point? They do mention that it’s largely not understood… well that’s because we invented it! Psychologists combed through our genetic makeup, gave everything a label, organised our personalities into ‘types’ and even down to something called ‘The Big Five’. This just means now people can mix n match a diagnosis based on society’s idealism’s as easy as a personalised salad on your lunch break.

Just like the shy puppy in the litter, there has always been the naturally restless one, the anxious one, the excited one and the very energetic one. And if you still don’t see humans as the same as animals for whatever reason – there’s still always the deaf, dumb and blind ones too. It’s just nature’s way of supporting diversity, where change is the only constant and accidents create life.

INATTENTIVENESS

a short attention span

being easily distracted

making careless mistakes, for example in schoolwork

appearing forgetful or losing things

being unable to stick at tasks that are tedious or time consuming

being unable to listen to or carry out instructions

being unable to concentrate

constantly changing activity or task

having difficulty organising tasks

HYPERACTIVITY

being unable to sit still, especially in calm or quiet surroundings

constantly fidgeting

being unable to settle to tasks

excessive physical movement

excessive talking

IMPULSIVENESS

being unable to wait for a turn

acting without thinking

interrupting conversations

little or no sense of danger

ADULTS

carelessness and lack of attention to detail

continually starting new tasks before finishing old ones

poor organisational skills

inability to focus or prioritise

continually losing or misplacing things

forgetfulness

restlessness and edginess

difficulty keeping quiet and speaking out of turn

blurting responses, and poor social timing when talking to others

often interrupting others

mood swings

irritability and a quick temper

inability to deal with stress

extreme impatience

taking risks in activities, often with little or no regard for personal safety or the safety of others

My father labelled me ‘scatter-brain’ as a young girl and yes I can tick the majority of the boxes above. Whether or not I’ve got ADHD is debatable, even though one doctor said I probably did but didn’t want to medicate me. Getting ready to go anywhere can be a drawn-out task, which can either be entertaining or frustrating for others to watch me in action. Two dimensions away I will still scurry from room to room eternally searching, checking, stopping and starting in a focused frenzy. The mental fogginess makes you distant and detached. One day so certain and the next so elusive. One day so anxious and the next so optimistic. Vacant gazing and pondering is my forte, whether it was out the class window or mid-conversation. Focus is challenging in the realm of the unwavering muddled mind where I find myself tirelessly analyzing, thinking, evaluating, structuring ideas and planning my next move. These thoughts take priority in my day, so channelling the madness in my radio static mind is difficult to say the least. But….. as much as it hinders, it’s me, all of it. The moody, careless, fanatical, empathetic, rebellious, fearless, enduring side to my nature overlaps with what they would tell me is a disorder.

Controversy clouds this diagnosis and so it should. Critics have summed up ADHD as a medical condition where those at the active end of the population are seen as ‘problems’. Where obedience and order are strictly reinforced values in society, medically defining these traits takes away the blame from those who are actually the root the problem. Although extensive genetic tests have taken place, no single gene with a significant contribution to this disorder has been identified… of course.

“Why did you move to the UK?” they ask… “You come from Australia!” they shriek in disbelief before normally proceeding to interrogate me as to why I would do such a thing. I used to get wrapped up in trying to convince them that there is more to life than the beach, blondes and benefits; until I realised I really should be asking them the very same question…

I thought about it…. why did I leave my small sandy sanctuary with lightly washed skies, dusty greens and royal marine blues? Only to replace that with massacred upturned umbrellas and lonely gloves lying like corpses in the street. The answer to me was simple: because familiarity breeds indifference no matter where you are. I came to London for England. For a home away from home but different in so many refreshingly subtle ways. For men in ties, trilby’s and blazers. For Pete Doherty and an English song. For funny pub names and tea not just at dawn. For seasonal sunshine and winters that last all year long. For that kind British culture, Reeboks, Shakespeare and Orwell… where could that all go wrong?

But it’s cold out on there on the cobbles these days, amongst the myriad of blurred faces, names, shapes and common disgraces. I slip in-between the folds and creases of disorientated tourists that forever blanket central London. My mask is on, my ears nicely blocked with the same old tunes and my eyes are routinely fixed to the ground. I duck and weave past oversized maps attached to madly flailing arms before swerving to avoid a head on collision, and spoiling the photo of just another person in a red photo booth. A lonely church nestled in the bedrock of British soil catches my eye and I examine it longingly. Its neo-Gothic pinnacles piece the canvas ceiling which is splashed in its famous moody greys. I blink and for one elusive moment I can still hear the horse shoes slapping the pavement as they cuddle the medieval stones that propel them swiftly by. I can smell the musty odour of the horse and its sweat as it beads down its neatly sculptured flanks. I squint and glimpse the man perched up top of his wagon boasting a double-breasted over-coat, moustache and top-hat as he defiantly surveys the roads. I can even feel the air being sliced apart by the snapping of his whip which reverberates through the nostalgic breeze. However, when I open my eyes I see yet another pointless off-licence crammed into the tired belly of a magnificent pile of bloodied Victorian bricks. I see Tesco bags flying like flags from skeletal tree branches. I hear a porridge of accents, languages and dialects constantly creeping up and fading with intensity as they brush me past. Without the aid of my imagination though, it’s much easier to forget where you are when you’re immersed into a perilous ocean of multi-cultural diversity and all of its contradicting intensities. Blue, white and red pepper this town in hopes that this proud country can remind us all whose milk we’re drinking, whose jobs we’re taking and who’s culture we’re influencing.

London has a population of around 8 million strong which is already over one third of the entire population of Australia. And for those of you who still don’t grasp how big Australia really is, just imagine the United Kingdom fitting into it about 31 times. So with 40% of that population in London considered to be of ethnic background; what does that do to a city? What does that do to community? How does that influence government? What happens when such a concentrated melting pot of conflicting beliefs, traditions, rules and values are mashed together and stirred about in hopes of achieving something pleasant, colourful and healthy? Will harmonic progress be achieved through a united understanding and respect of history, traditional culture and native ethics? Or will it become rather like a nasty and distasteful stew that has been abused with too many ingredients, or an artist that has mistreated his pallet with too many colours that make that repugnant muddy green.

Unlike the blissful utopian comfort that normally comes from living in a small like-minded community, the divides between minds run deep here and behave more like frontiers slashing through the face of London in all directions. I miss the cheerful “good mornings” from strangers as they pass you in the street. The way you can comfortably chat with almost anyone you meet on the bus or at the beach. The euphoric feeling of self pride that comes from helping others with their bags or by giving up your seat. The way you can leave your front door open or your car unlocked; these are the crucial little things that London lacks due to its sheer size and variety. People here seem to be rather indifferent, sceptical, alienated and frustrated as we are funnelled into a sterile environment which is based on the neutral agreement to disagree. With such opposing beliefs of what defines a happy and rewarding life; like attracts like and so minds stay closed. People huddle together in race, religion and origin where they seem to be neglecting the very foundation on which they are building their lives.

With all the abundant positives that come from diversity, do the possible negatives ever seem to come into account at all? Or are governments more concerned with civility and security of foreign income than with its own culture and community? Like anything in excess; Plato says that it generally causes a reaction and produces a change in the opposite direction, whether it’s with seasons, individuals or governments. So what will the future London look like? What will England look like? Will it be sure-footed enough to safeguard its mesmerizing grace and heritage in hopes that it can continue to offer the world more than just a barren suggestion of what its tradition used to feel like? On that note, what about the countries of Europe? They have already lost their array of currencies in collaboration with the EU, and so with it a slither of identity. In a world that demands unison and does not have the mentality or capacity to support it; what will happen to countries and their cultures around the globe? What then is the next big thing to be deemed useless? An abundance of languages? Then surely after that, an abundance of words? Are we being stripped of our creativity? Is the common man and women in a business suit speaking one language and learning one truth really possible? And for what? What becomes the very point of our existence when we live in a world where we are driven more so by our addiction to digits than our very own humanly needs and our first degree happiness? Is there any room to debate the possibility of a futuristic worldwide non-culture that is stemmed from the only common ground that we are struggling to agree on which is fact? Will our cultural differences eventually be weaned from our consciousness to forever belong to the past? Will we then be more easily identified and controlled? If unity is needed, what are the odds that the elite countries of the world will cooperate as one anyway?

Like many capital cities, London is more of a donation of land to the world where she is dressed-up and abused for her pregnant history and traditional wonders. As much as I love her, I cannot trust her. She’s a fake. She tries to be everything to everyone and has lost her identity on the trade-in. A shape shifter at heart, London as it were, is buried ten feet underground and whatever this is that remains, is merely but an illusion.

IM NOT INTERESTED IN THE NEWS BECAUSE ONE CAN NEVER KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TRUTH AND FALSEHOOD

“Do you have Rizzla?” I heard faintly amid the conversational static on the buzzing terrace of an east-London bar. I didn’t flinch as I cradled my cocktail in both hands. I continued to vacantly peer down at the curves that the liquid made as it hugged those perfectly manufactured cubes of ice. Sat at the end of a wooden bench, I took another sip and poked around the glass with my chewed-up straw, assessing my levels of sobriety. “Do you have Rizzla?” I heard again, this time in a more defined clarity. I glanced over my shoulder to notice Jake patting his coat pockets and apologetically shaking his head at a figure sitting on the other side of the table. I turned away as if slightly disinterested before noisily slurping up the stagnant remains of my drink. Bored, I took one last exploratory look at the group of kids drinking peacefully in the moonlit alley opposite me, before shuffling around to face Jake and the voice. As soon as I had finished awkwardly lifting my coat and arranging myself to fit my legs under the table without having to stand up, an English lad in his late twenties was already staring at me with a rather intense focus when I lifted my head. He raised his fair eyebrows and robustly requested in a somewhat alluring vanity, “Do… you have Rizzla?” I paused for an instant as my eyes flickered to inspect the large black fleshies he wore in both ears. In a fleeting amount of time I re-affixed his gaze, his eyes a profound, mysterious green which seemed to violate mine with a probing intellect. “Narr I don’t hey, do y’have draw?!” I playfully answered and waited for his reaction. He lowered his head subtly wearing a cowardly smirk before stating, “Yea I do but just for one”. As if I had uncovered some forbidden secret of his intention for that Rizzla, I chuckled boldly and then began tearing into my satchel, throwing things around in vain for a loose paper, knowing quite well that I hadn’t had any in there for some time…

That would be the night I would experience mind control at its most basic and at its best; first hand and free. Hypnotist, let’s call him, Mr M, baffled me, my friends and the others that sheepishly flocked around him for over an hour. Concerns over catching the last tube home after midnight dissolved, as this master of the people persisted to astound and astonish anyone daring enough to “pick a card any card”. I had drawn the Queen of hearts on a piece of paper as Jake (moments later) chose it out of the deck at random. He had written down to the penny exactly how much money Dave had in his wallet before making Jake ‘envision’ the very four digits that would unlock Mr M’s very own iPhone. As much as I marvelled at his finely-tuned psychological beacon for the suggestible type, I’ve never felt so jealous of how easily he could, quite literally, attach the strings and transform us all into stupid-faced puppets for his very own seemingly morbid pleasure. His casualness and modest assertiveness was lucidly compelling, he was the Pied Piper and we were his rats. Willingly, we all submitted to his paramount supremacy. He was in control, the leader, and we all knew it, whether we liked it or not. I wanted that. I wanted that control, and here I was belittled at my own game, laughing hysterically every time I couldn’t grasp how he did something. We left with tails between our legs, mystified and actually okay with it. Still, I also felt more like a pawn in society than I had ever felt before… well that feeling subsided for a moment while I drunkenly inhaled half a double-whopper-with-cheese outside Burger King shortly after.

Gazing defeated out of the window of bus 25 sometime later, I pondered the idea of free will. Are we as free-willed as we think we are? Do all the decisions I make consciously or unconsciously stem from my own devices? The answer made perfect sense to me now more than ever; of course not. Well at least not half as much as I once believed or anyone else for that matter. Hypnotism like mind reading and the like is often associated with entertainment, trickery and magic, but magic is what we call anything that we can’t explain – until we can explain it. And just like magic, if you do two minutes of research, or watch one episode of Derren Brown, you’ll see that hypnotists are just trained experts in the art of reading people and controlling the circumstance. Put technically, it’s the critical analysis of our most subtle movements and responses sided with the implantation of a series of preliminary instructions and suggestions to lead us to the desired outcome. So, yeah, in layman’s terms… it’s just psychology, ta da! As we’re becoming more understandable, we are just becoming more alterable. Not so magical no, but this means I’m going to have to talk about free will, which is a whole other can of worms that I’ll probably touch on another day. But the last time I checked; I’m a prisoner to my genes, moods, environment, senses, society, past and present, which all influences my future. Your suggestibility (or willingness to comply) will predict your future choices, as hypnotists prove so rightly with their results being too blatantly in-your-face obvious to ignore.

I always knew… rather, felt, that we are susceptible to what we see, hear, taste and listen to everyday, but with what precision and to what extent? Thus my fascination and indifference with the media was born. The media is the most powerful entity on Earth and its blatant control over the masses is overwhelmingly obvious yet eerily disregarded. The media controls what the world sees and how it sees it, so basically, any blank slated mind out there will be naturally inclined to believe practically anything it sees without questioning its reliability. The media is a magnifying glass that can blow events out of proportion, overlook them or kill them as soon as it roams elsewhere. Life is only in the spotlight. So really, what you are being shown is what they want you to see. What about the things you don’t see? Argh, but who cares right? We all know that right? But you all know what that means don’t you? You’re thoughts aren’t necessarily your own. Being ‘out of the loop’ is one of the most daunting things for most people these days… why? Because the media has successfully imbedded itself into our most basic human needs; to be socially accepted and to share experience. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and all the rest are so successful because we neeeed to see what other people are doing in order to judge the success of our own lives by comparing it with ‘your mates’. If you live in the jungle and nobody else knows about gangnam style, or another gruesome school massacre, you won’t have to either and for fuck sake, you’d all be the lucky ones.

“Turn off that bloody idiot box!” my mum would say while my dad sat glazed faced in his arm chair with a bottle handy for hours on end. Like a mute protest in my bones that has only recently been realised, I felt I always knew that there was something peculiar about television. As a kid I indulged like any other, but if I’m not learning something useful from it, my attention span for it these days is shorter than that of a 3 year old with ADHD.

The inexorable appeal of staring at a television set in my opinion is birth’d from our yearning to transcend our minds, or ‘fire-gaze’ like early humans did. In other words, to escape truth, silence the conversations in your head and to numb that incessant void that arises in your chest at the end of each personally unfulfilled day… well for some anyway. I believe this because of obvious reasons, durr it’s relaxing no doubt and ideal for those who find it easy to ‘switch off’ with an episode of “The Only Way is Essex” or “The X Factor”. Good for you. But if you’re one of the unlucky ones and was blessed with a mercilessly scattered, analytic mind that tirelessly thirsts for understanding, it becomes more of a struggle than a pleasure to sit idly by whilst voices bruise your ears and suck up your precious time. But then why is it so calming for others? Of course it’s got to do with the affect it has on our brains? But how many people actually sit there questioning it with, “hmm I wonder why I’m so engrossed in this poorly made series with actors that I am clearly aware are acting,” as they watch another episode of Home & Away where someone is in hospital every week. How many of those people just promptly shrug it off and continue to gaze zombie-like at other people living out premeditated existences, or envy those who chase their dreams instead of picking up their own dust-blanketed instruments? What about those who get engulfed by epic news stories about mind numbing shite (The Sun, The Sun, The Sun) where we all laugh at the fickleness of what we read, yet read it, trust it and pass it on. The tragic abuse of how global events are delivered to us as news is hauntingly intoxicating. Where the clever selection and omission of what to report and how they report it is always overlooked. With the right choice of pictures and words they can turn the tables on who’s a saint and who’s a sinner, what’s “shocking” and what’s “inspiring”. Not to mention the over-glorified talent shows who caress their viewers with a sense of crucial importance as a key player in the outcome of a ‘healthy competition’ between people like pawns on a chess board.

Banksy knows

How often have you found yourself staring vacantly at the TV screen, seemingly losing sense of time and place? Or for those who know the feeling of ‘tuning out’ on a long drive and feeling like God when you’ve travelled 20 minutes without realising it and haven’t hit a tree. We’ve all worked somewhere where little thought is required, where only laborious repetition is… did you hate it as much as I did when your focus came flooding back? Wishing you could just stay in that state until home time? Mundanely strapping elastic bands around stacks of newspapers one by one goes quicker when you find yourself zoning in and out in the process… believe me. Turns out this happens when we actually stop thinking consciously and revert to our more animalistic and automated mind. Obviously this idle state of mind happens naturally but can also be achieved by clever manipulation. Ultimately, it’s simpler than you would care to know, but as humans being the powerhouses of erratic and constant thought, it just doesn’t happen naturally on a regular basis.

So when you stop all thought and analysis and your mind goes blank, this produces an altered state of consciousness or the hypnotic state of mind. The keys in achieving this suggestible state of mind are distraction and repetition. We all know of the flashing lights, words and repeated sounds in television commercials that never cease to annoy and lull you into submission. Well the lights are the distraction for your eyes to lock on to. You may not know either (because it’s also not consciously perceived) that while the TV screen appears static, it actually flickers. Any repeated light or sound pattern can seduce you into this altered state where your brain relegates itself from the thoughtful, logical and analytical state to the reactive animalistic state. While watching TV, activity from the left side of your brain transfers to the right and from the outer evolved regions to the inner, known as the reptile brain. The left side of the brain is associated with logical, critical thought and the right emotionally uncritical. Hypnotists (being trained in basic human psychology) know this and use a patterned speech by punctuating it with pacing and inflections in tone to amazingly achieve the very same thing. This state of mind is the state where you are most susceptible to mental programming because it influences your unconscious… something that most of us still don’t really believe or fully understand because we’re not aware of its importance, after all, it only helps us to um… breathe and all the rest. Once you’ve succumbed to the hypnotists’ suggestion, or from your television screen per se, logical resistance to the message is reduced, leaving your subconscious open for anything. Whether you are told to forget your name or that you must buy that product at low, low prices.

The few cubic centimetres inside our heads that we think we own, are being violated, and yet we’re not shocked when we hear about it, nor do we question it, and most of us aren’t even aware of it. Do you even really care though? That we are being bombarded with suggestion from practically everyone and everything on a daily basis with the media being at the core of our fundamental thinking? Probably not, but at least knowing the importance and power of your subconcious can help you to acccept other people’s prejudices as much as your own. You just have to understand and accept your own mental hiccups and weaknesses too, which ultimately should make you less abrasive when your moral make-up clashes with someone else’s somewhat alien beliefs. Whether it be religious or something simple that your parents ingrained into you as a child… I still don’t eat the ends of my bananas in fears of contracting some exotic mosquito virus, thanks mum.

All in all, what the conscious mind believes, the subconscious acts on, just like a computer. Even if the information is wrong. If a person believes it on a subconscious level, it will still act on it. Your subconscious will automatically and involuntarily reject information that is not currently held in line with previously accepted thoughts and beliefs. Many people don’t question these deeply entrenched thoughts, even if the source is reliable. Cults, movements, governing bodies, ideas and religion all are seemingly never questioned even if facts and information are shown to them to prove otherwise. Even whilst reading this you’re battling with your subconscious thoughts and either agreeing or denying what I am telling you is true; true as in what can be tested and seen. At the end of the day you will walk away either accepting or denying what you’ve read, but only if you want to know more will you research it for yourself. We generally will believe information that is carefully timed and presented by a respective authority, and by authority I mean is anyone who is an ‘authority’ in your eyes. The level of how successful the message is delivered into the subconscious of somebody depends on two factors; trust in the source and repetition to embed it into subconscious. If you trust somebody you are also submitting to their idea and their direction, this can be dangerous – love is blind. This tapping into subconscious causes you to accept the information as true without even thinking about it when it is presented again – a conditioned and automatic response. You don’t know me, I’m just another person with a blog. I’m not a reliable source, but you will trust more in what I say if it aligns with what you previously think. And to be honest, I’m not really appealing to a broad crowd, so if you’re reading this still, we probably share many of the same opinions anyway.

So who are your trusted authorities? How much do you trust their philosophies? How much do you doubt your own? How many ideas actually stem from your own factual research and conclusions? Even if you think it’s obvious not to put your faith in politicians, presenters and the like, you still feel as though they wouldn’t want to purposely mislead you, well maybe not politicians. But we’re still inclined to trust them, as they have the tools to deliver the info and we’ve got the laziness to accept it. Yet people in positions of power are still just people, like you, with the same biases, demons and fallibilities as the rest of us.

Did you ever think about when newscasters and politicians sometimes raise sheets of paper when they speak? Well… that can be seen as the distraction no? All the while information is delivered verbally with hypnotic rhythm, punctuated by changes in pacing, volume and tone. A hypnotist speaks with the same confidence and authority, so whether they are looking directly into the camera at the audience or into the eye of their subject, it works the same way. The capacity to lie with a picture and be undetected is more powerful than ever with modern technology. Is it possible that all verbal and non-verbal communication has been defined and reduced to a code that can be manipulated? Is it really possible to program the masses into a population that is highly suggestible and can be controlled with precision?

Think about how we are educated. Schools are institutions that demand respect, trust and confidence. Remember when you were a child reading a book. The printed words were the distraction while you focused on the content. You didn’t have a reason to believe that the information being programmed to your elementary truths may be false, so you accepted it as true even if you didn’t understand it. Then, study it and repeat. How much are you certain of is actually true? Like George Orwell said “He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.” With our past and presents being heavily influenced by different factors, our futures are far more predictable than we’d ever like to admit. The pressure to accept what is shown to you as true determines your grades, and your future. The greater your compliance, the better chance you have for a comfortably independent life. Educating the young is more of a mental conditioning, whether the intention is pure or not. We all know we need an education for the world we live in, and all humans have the innate desire to know, so are they really teaching the right things? Why is philosophy and innovative free-thinking topics not taught from a young age and thought restricting subjects like religion still are? Where the cold hard truth can be embellished with seductive promises of compensation in an imaginary world beyond the grave. Is education really used to condition our minds for what comes later? Could they really be eliminating the difference between propaganda and education by doing so? Could we really be subject to wave upon wave of information disguised as facts into knowledge and dispensed with ulterior motives? Has education become more political and social rather than academic? Nooo… could George Orwell be more right than we would ever want to imagine?

Power has always been to the music too and Plato had even said that music had an order: “first, music moves the emotions: second, it gives pleasure: third, it disposes toward moral goodness; and fourth, it disposes toward learning. Repetition of sounds distracts the mind and even more so when lyrics are not distinguishable. When you don’t understand what is being said, you cannot consciously choose to accept or reject it leaving you open for mental programming. Sound affects our blood pressure, body chemistry, breathing and digestion. Fast music speeds up the nervous system, while slow music slows it down. Low tones vibrate in lower parts of body and high tones in the upper body and head. Sounds that cannot be heard still affect us. Much of today’s music is built around low and heavy bass patterns which are often louder than the melody. These loud, low-frequency vibrations and the driving beat affect the pituitary gland which produces hormones that control male and female sexual responses. Music is then made to feeeel good. The rest is left up to what kind of message wants to be delivered. No wonder why thousands of Britons listed their religion as heavy metal last year and have you heard those lyrics? I’d rather be brainwashed by The Beatles… cheers fella’s.

We are susceptible to mental programming whether we want to be or not. When you think you want something back from society, could it be that they have told you that you want it? Take crime for example. They can create the problem (let’s say, an increase in crime) then make it appear that violence is an acceptable way of problem solving by the way it’s portrayed. Then, create an opposition to the problem in our minds by instilling fear and anxiety in the public so we demand for a solution. While we are mentally confused, (emotional stress means judgment is impaired and suggestibility is heightened) they can offer us that solution, even when restrictions are placed on our individual rights. This makes it appear that we are now better off rather than being further confined or further taxed for more police. Time after time we allow our rights to be diminished without knowing its ramifications. This will therefore bring about changes that would otherwise be impossible without premeditated psychological conditioning. The introduction of CCTV in London trains is just the next step of keeping an extra close watchful eye on us, not so much for “our safety” as they put it I’d imagine. Do you like knowing that you can be seen approximately 300 times a day in London? Still, the exact statistics related to public surveillance remain ever elusive…

The desire of controlling people is the absolute control of information. What you think can therefore be controlled by controlling information. Before we speak, they heard, and before we knew, they were setting it up for us. Practising conditioning of mind on the masses is not a legitimate function of government; it is rather the hallmark of tyranny. Telling us what we are and what we want means the obliteration of the self and the oppression of independent thought. Good government should know the objective of life and administer that accordingly. If they don’t know, they are incapable of offering a peaceful society and will deliberately and successfully, undermine the real meaning of life; the spiritual one. And when I say spiritual, I mean the fundamental basis of our existence; where life is meant for understanding and where real knowledge is the understanding of yourself and others. The meaning of life is to give life a meaning. So where competition reigns supreme and when money and acquisition are delicately entwined to the one thing that we alldesire – our freedom, we will continue to walk over each other in hopes of feeling free. Our problems cannot be solved by material things yet the gnawing, unwholesome hunger for possession persuades us to perpetually work, fight, and compete in order to show off our liberty by what we own. Like a hopeless fancy, I yearn for utter freedom to ponder, create and enjoy life on a simplistic level. The answers however, it appears, lie outside the borders of my imagination. Like a parched man endlessly pursuing a mirage on a desert horizon, our desperate hunt for the elusive idea of freedom will prevail, even though it doesn’t exist.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE ABLE TO CHOOSE WHEN AND EVEN HOW YOU DIE? Would you prefer to be eaten alive by a shark? Or in your sleep? Car crash maybe? Seriously painful and demoralising old age?

If you said no, well you actually did just choose… yea but nothing. And regardless of the answer, you chose, consciously or not. You don’t have to be afraid of it, even if you believe you will have more life after the end, we all die, we all have to give back what we have taken, this is what we know, regardless of what you believe.

Automatically logic tells me that I have been given the right to live therefore, I would obviously have the right to die on my own accord. Well if you attempt suicide in the UK that seems to be legally ok, they’ll treat you as ill and take the appropriate steps. Whereas if you seek help, say, from a healthcare professional to assist you in, let’s call it a peaceful and orderly departure from consciousness; that can lead to prosecution and 14 years in prison for those who assisted.

Just because it’s popular – doesn’t make it right.

Euthanasia has always been just another fruitless debate where people have the excuse to vent their moralistic frustrations out on one another. The death topic, like any other major controversial topic is always intrinsically entwined with the natural, logical argument versus morals, ethics and always, my favourite, religion.

So if you were laying in a hospital bed suffering in unimaginable agony where the physical pain is so excruciating that our strongest drugs become a necessity rather than a luxury. Not to mention the unfathomable disorientating confusion that one must feel to experience their mental condition sliding further and further away from loved ones, and into a shifty, foggy haze of uncertainty and delusion. A befuddling and perplexing thought for all the rest of us that take our current healthy states of minds severely for granted. It is difficult to appreciate your mental health or the ‘normalcy’ of your standard psychological condition when you have never experienced your days without it. So how then would you be able to inform someone on their rights of being a human when the very thing that makes us human (our consciousness) begins to rapidly recede into the vastness of oblivion… and don’t forget about the excruciating pain.

So would you then prefer a doctor to flick a switch, hope that you are physically able to do it yourself when nobody’s looking, get on the next plane to Switzerland (because it’s legal there) or listen to some preaching fairy blowing hot air in your face, talking about the importance to live even if it’s against your will. I think by this time if you haven’t already told the preaching fairy to f**k off and up the morphine, what kind of things would you say back to them from your own perspective to help them be more empathetic and understanding?

It seems as though for a change, the vast majority of British citizens (80%) agree that they should have the choice to ‘die with dignity’ as well as 64% of general practitioners. Yet due to the ‘taboo-ness’ surrounding death (I’d call it more of a suffocating fear) the parliament have yet to legalise euthanasia.

So what is the argument? The religious are obviously in their element regarding this debate with talks of the afterlife and the like as they desperately try to fling their superstitions and beliefs onto anyone who doesn’t question them. Some seem to think that muttering the words “Thou shall not kill” is the obvious and simple solution. But surely they must be aware that we can be responsive of such commandments guided by reason without the need or desire for religious revelations? What about justified wars? Capital punishment? Killing in self-defence? Killing is not absolute, nor is life or our definitions of it. This is where religion fails, as believers are guided by an absolute idea, from an age-old era, with age-old guidelines, stemmed from outdated information which is then injected into today’s 21st century. Believers have their right to their own misgivings, not and I repeat not, to impose them on anyone else who do not share their ideologies, experiences and perspective.

The birth of humans brought the birth of meaning. So if life is more to us than just to exist, to live a life with a feeling of purpose and happiness, and if happiness is pleasure free from pain and distress of any kind, the answer, you would think would be an easy one. But this enquiry seems to be interlaced with some of the most elusive questions of all time, like, what is the meaning of life? No wonder we have not agreed on a solution yet. Obviously we all have different ideas on how we should carry out our existences and are ruthless in trying to persuade others to adopt our own personal philosophies. However, the struggle also comes more from our inability to shift the negative connotations surrounding death, as we certainly have a hard time accepting its normality and necessity. Also by giving the concept of death divine attributes and labelling it the property of celestial beings where it is not to be tampered with, just adds fuel to the fire if I may be cliché.

Nevertheless, killing, dying and death are as embedded into our existence as nature itself, where there is positive there is always a negative and vice versa. We’re all aware of this on some level but it makes us uneasy, that’s because we are essentially caring creatures, bound by the very thing that makes us human… the complicated skill of reason.

Consequently, when people argue that suicide in any scenario goes against nature, must they not understand that just like our natural instincts to self-preservation and protection, we also have been given the intrinsic ability to reason too? This means that mankind also have the capacity to examine their own welfare and question whether instinct is indeed serving them well, or not. Therefore the idea of one’s own destruction going against nature would then be deemed irrelevant… sorry.

Death by Choice (Deviantart.com)

We have to seriously question more of the deeply rooted virtues that have guided us through our fortunate and colourful existence with open eyes, hearts and minds. It seems as though we have the opportunity in doing that now more than ever with all the resources and information which has been made available to us, all free to share on a global scale. Hopefully now we will gain more of a firsthand insight into each other’s similarities, differences and most importantly, perspectives. The importance of accepting the vital truths of various viewpoints in each other’s lives is crucial if we are to move forward together. Above all, we are designed to follow our inborn inclination to actively empathise with others, regardless of what religion, science and philosophy have to offer us. In saying that, here’s something Neitzsche said..

The media lament our selfish tendencies with every chance they get and still seem to be humbled or surprised when people choose time and time again to give their last penny to charity or give up their precious time to help others. What is it about our modern age that makes us feel estranged to kindness like it’s some kind of guilty pleasure? Scientists keep testing and keep finding that people find greater delight from giving than from fun. So why are we all so afraid to do it more often?

For centuries philosophers and scientists have debated the topic and found that the life lived in acknowledgment of each other’s needs, desires and weaknesses is the life we are more inclined to live and actually seem to be doing without realising it.

But in these modern times we believe that living in accordance to our sympathies and vulnerabilities will overwhelm us. As if you must choose a life of kindness or success. However, the good life consists of us knowing that we mutually belong to one another and that sacrificing the best parts of ourselves will often result in happier lives.

Money, power, sexuality and violence have always been our guilty pleasures but it seems these days, ironically, that kindness itself is the most forbidden and dangerous pleasure. Kindness is always perilous because it is based on the susceptibility to others. The ability to relate to their desires and inadequacies can be uncomfortable. But with every great human pleasure being somehow hazardous, they are also the most satisfying that we have.

“A sign of health in the mind is the ability of one individual to enter imaginatively and accurately into the thoughts and feelings and hopes and fears of another person; also to allow the other person to do the same to us.” (Donal Winnicott) Meaning that unkindness is like a glitch in one’s imagination which can affect their happiness and sanity.

Modern Western societies are formed and operate in a way which contradicts this fundamental truth, valuing independence above all. The need for others is deemed as weakness. We all say we yearn for intimidate relationships to be magical like Romeo and Juliette or Twilight where each counterpart appears to be completely infatuated and dependent on each other. Yet in reality we see dependence in this way as being incompatible with self-reliance and somebody who is actually that devoted is mentally unhealthy or unreliable. And yet, we are indeed all innately dependent beings, living in highly competitive societies.

Capitalism is not a system for the kind at heart. It undermines the very things that it once relied upon; family, career and communities. Competitive societies instigate indifference and people become estranged from each other. Cynicism from a pressured culture develops and only grows as those strive to achieve the lives of the rich and famous. Enterprise culture means a life of overwork, anxiety and isolation, so we are being forced to try to survive in a world where competition reigns supreme.

So if kindness is praiseworthy yet only for mugs, but fellow feeling is what people really crave, what can we do? Well religion has made us hate each other enough already, not to mention the depressing debates between them as they casually and verbally attack one another… that’s a disheartening sight for anyone. But the theories of the ‘selfish gene’ don’t seem to work either, as the idea of a universal law being that humans are innately selfish doesn’t seem to be a very pleasant civilisation to exist in if this were true. We can argue over our morals and beliefs of what we are and why we do things but one thing is for sure; acts of kindness demonstrate that we are empathetic and dependable animals with no better remedy than each other.

Richard Dawkins – “If you wish, as I do, to build a society in which individuals cooperate generously and unselfishly towards a common good, you can expect little help from biological nature. Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish… Let us understand what our own selfish genes are up to because we may then at least have the chance to upset their designs”

The Olympics are an extremely complicated event to organise, costing unruly amounts of money and time; yet its prestige and global influence is undeniably a force that even already prosperous cities succumb to. The socio-economical trend of the former hosts of the Olympics in the last three decades indicates that there are generally two categories in which they fall. The first being countries which feel as though they have something to prove to the world; normally once developing countries where they have undergone economical growth and then seek to showcase their achievements by hosting a huge global event. The second are the rich and developed countries which appear to be doing so for nothing more than a very expensive global marketing campaign for their city, attracting more tourists in the future.

London quite readily falls into the second category and it seems that they’re not fooling anyone. The city is one of the undisputed centres of the world already, (in its own right) and attracts billions of tourists every year. It’s got stadiums, airports, highways and hotels – everything it needs is already there. It doesn’t need any advertising or marketing campaigns asking people to visit, it doesn’t need to show to the world that it is capable of hosting the Olympics and we all know it.

Rail is the lifeblood for England’s residents where 20 million passengers use London’s transport system every day. It is expected that approximately 80% of spectators attending events will be travelling by rail, placing extra demand on an already pressured rail network. And WIFI in the tube only for the holidays? Where is all this money going?! What better things could all this be spent on instead of making more money from tourism!

It could be better spent on more housing for young professionals. The Olympics are not going to help the residents at all. The tube is my main concern as everyone else’s, I feel like it’s all fake, it’s all for tourism. They could focus on how to curb the ever increasing rent prices and cost of living for the residents (which is unbelievably high). I truly don’t think dozens of new unimaginably expensive to build stadiums in the middle of the east-end is a current priority for this city…

Despite the undying, positive global buzz that the Olympic Games seem to radiate time and time again; the overall effect of the event on your average Londoners’ lives remains very uncertain and perhaps far less positive than the organisers had ever hoped for… in saying that, do you think they really care? Laughable…